Just had Rob (fromthehip) into the shop today. I agreed the bat feels hard higher up the blade from the middle, but it has not had any knocking in etc yet. It reminded me a little of my Laver Reserve which was painful to use to begin with (Robs isn't that bad thankfully) but feels fantastic now.
I am going to spend the next few weeks firstly knocking it in and then giving it a good go on the bowling machine to get it going like i did with my Laver. If Rob still isn't happy we will take it from there.
To clarify things a little further, i doubt many off the shelf bats look like this when you roll the grip down.
Our custom mades this year have a mishmash mix of toe guards/scuff sheets. I apologise for this, but it is somehwat beyond my control. I suspect it may be a case of more than one batmaker at Robertsbridge making the bats, and obviously they all have their own way of doing things. The shoulder stamps vary a bit which further suggests numerous batmakers.
They have also all come with various grips, mostly either chevron or old style snake grips. One came with a new zone grip but in a grey/black colour which is not on any bat in the 2014 range. I was told when we visited Robertsbridge that i wouldn't be able to get any spare grips for a while as they were not in yet. I guess the batmakers are suffering the same problem. Luckily Rob wanted a white chevron, to match Compton.
Rob asked for 2013 E41 stickers as he likes the look of Nick Comptons bat. He has got those stickers, yet there is a 2014 new style toe guard. There were no E41's left at GN when we visited anyway, but if this was just off the shelf i doubt they would go to the trouble of fitting a new style toe guard.